Hospital Personalities of the Year

Respiratory Therapy

What’s the biggest difference between a respiratory therapist and a nurse? Nurses hate mucus and RTs can’t stand vomit.

Respiratory therapy people are identifiable by the O2 saturation monitors dangling from strings around their necks and their really, really nice stethoscopes. They also tend to have the best coffee in the hospital, so if somebody looks relatively awake at the beginning of the shift, it’s most likely an RT or someone with access to their caffeine. They, like nursing and the therapies, wear scrubs. Unlike nursing and the therapies, their eyes do not bug out when confronted with a malfunctioning ventilator.